Outside of politics, Thailand has a good story to tell

WHEN central bankers line up almost daily to assert their commitment to fighting inflation, it makes me think of Thailand. Not the fine resorts and great food. The country’s untrumpeted success is seriously taming prices to the point where officials might want to think about easing up, lest the economy slows too much.

Like the rest of South-east Asia, Thailand has been blindsided by the modest nature of China’s rebound. Tourism, a key industry, is gradually recovering. The number of Chinese visitors is heading in the right direction, but nothing like the surge that was anticipated when Beijing cancelled Covid Zero. Thailand’s divisive politics are not helpful: Two months after an election, the country is without a prime minister.

Do not let these caveats subtract from a fine story. Most policymakers would prefer to forget that when inflation first started to climb in 2021, they played it down. Having wrestled with how to fire it up in the years before the pandemic, they were not going to jump at the initial upticks. A host of terms was used to describe the benign scenario: “temporary”, “short-lived” and of course, the now infamous “transitory”. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stuck by the “T” word too long, before ultimately burying it and embarking on an aggressive tightening.